Situated at the southern end of Rock Creek Park, atop a bluff known as Linnaean Hill, is the Peirce-Klingle Mansion. Developed by Joshua Peirce in 1823, the estate originally consisted of 82 acres overlooking Rock Creek. Peirce received the property from his father, Isaac Peirce, and built the ten-room farmhouse of locally sourced granite in a vernacular interpretation of the Federal style. Peirce enlarged the house in 1843 with a one-story wing on the west side of the building. He also oversaw construction of the two-story front entryway and cast-iron porch, both designed in the Gothic Revival style, between 1866 and 1869. Besides these alterations and minor repairs over the years, the exterior of the mansion has been well preserved over the past two centuries. The mansion is one of four surviving structures built by Peirce; the others include a utility shed, potting shed, and carriage house.

Linnean Hill is the site of the first commercial nursery and garden center in the District of Columbia. Peirce named his property Linnaean Hill in honor of Karl von Linnaeus, the famous Swedish botanist and father of modern taxonomy. As a horticulturalist, Peirce grew ornamental trees and shrubs, fruit trees, and a variety of flowers, most notably prized varieties of camellias. In 1826, he built a large glass greenhouse on a lower terrace behind the mansion to assist with the cultivation of his plants, which he supplied to many public parks and reservations, including the White House. He also designed the surrounding landscape as a picturesque country garden, taking advantage of the surrounding woodland and steep topography to create dramatic views.

Peirce did not operate Linnaean Hill alone. As he and his wife, Susan, had no children, he made use of enslaved labor to run the nursery and his farmstead. Between 1830 and 1860, census records show as many as 13 enslaved individuals lived at Linnaean Hill. Following emancipation in 1862, Peirce’s nephew, Joshua Peirce Klingle, assisted with running the nursery, along with two African American farmhands. Peirce also hired his formerly enslaved nursery foreman, William H. Becket, to resume his duties at the estate.

Following the death of Joshua Peirce in 1869, the property passed to his nephew, Joshua Pierce Klingle. The Klingles occupied the mansion until the early 1890s, when it was acquired by the Federal government to create Rock Creek Park. In the following years, park staff used the property for employee housing. From 1956 to 1959, the National Park Service utilized the mansion as the Rock Creek Park Nature Center, which catered largely to school children. Today, the Peirce-Klingle Mansion serves as the headquarters building for Rock Creek Park. Nearly 32 acres of the original estate have been preserved, making Linnaean Hill one of the most intact nineteenth-century country estates in northwest Washington, D.C.